Documentary Now!
When I added IFC back to my cable lineup a while back, I was happy to realize that I’ll get to watch the new season of “Documentary Now!” in September.
The first season only consisted of seven half-hour episodes (five stand-alones and a two-parter), and I’m DVRing and re-watching them as they pop up in reruns.
In case you’re not familiar with this brilliant show, it’s executive produced by Seth Meyers and stars Bill Hader and Fred Armisen (and each episode is introduced by Helen Mirren!).
Most episodes are parodies of a specific well-known documentary. There was one first-season episode that was a style parody poking fun of the news organization VICE, and another — the one I just got through watching — that was just gloriously silly without being a parody of any specific documentary.
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That last documentary would be “A Town, A Gangster, A Festival,” the premise of which is that a town in Iceland has somehow begun and maintained an Al Capone festival.
The parodies reward close attention, and they are funny even if you haven’t seen the source material — and I know most of the first season’s targets by reputation only. But the new season will include “Juan Likes Rice & Chicken,” a parody of one of my all-time favorite documentaries, “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi.” Here’s a trailer for “Jiro,” which you really do need to see:
But you also need to see “Documentary Now!” when it returns Sept. 14. Here’s a sneak peek, a clip of their parody of the classic campaign documentary “The War Room” (not to be confused with the more recent faith-based drama “War Room”).
